Tavoni: Vettel needs to get his head back together

Tavoni, 92, follows the sport with great interest and believes that how Vettel performs this season will determine the future direction for the Scuderia, "In 2018, Vettel had a bad championship, making too many mistakes, although a few were not his fault."

"I believe that the keystone of the immediate future for Ferrari hinges on the Vettel situation. We saw some unacceptable imperfections and now we will see what happens."

What needs to happen, for Vettel, is that he puts behind him a season that promised much but in the end resulted in disappointment. How last year's championship runner-up bounces back - with young hotshot Charles Leclerc in the sister car - will be a big subplot of the new F1 soap opera that kicks off with preseason testing next month.

Tavoni explained, "This is a fundamental key for 2019. I think the Vettel's skills are his biggest asset and he has the talent to do it, after all, he is a four-time World Champion."

"In other words, Ferrari has a new boss in Binotto, now Vettel has to be his spearhead on track and for this, he needs to get his head back together."

As former personal assistant to Enzo Ferrari and sporting director of the Scuderia, Tavoni oversaw Mike Hawthorn's F1 world championship winning campaign in 1958 as well as Phil Hill's title triumph for the Reds in 1961.

As an insider for many years, he knows a thing or two about the polemics at Via Abetone Inferiore #4, the latest being the replacing of Maurizio Arrivabene with Mattia Binotto at Ferrari as preparations for the new season ramp up.

"It was known that there were internal frictions," said Tavoni of the latest saga. "Arrivabene wanted to unload some of the responsibility [of failure in 2018] on Binotto who did not take kindly to it. Who makes the team decisions? It was Arrivabene who made the decisions."

Of Binotto, Tavoni ventured, "He is an excellent engineer, however, this new role of Team Principal involves, among other things, maintaining relations with the other teams, involvement in politics and dealing with Liberty Media."

"Overall it is a very complex and very demanding role, so I think that Mattia Binotto needs to be assisted by someone, who this person is will prove to be very important for the success of his term in charge. In any case, I remain a bit perplexed..." admitted Tavoni.

Parked beside Vettel in the Ferrari garage next year will be eager 21-year-old Leclerc, the highly rated youngster not keen to play second fiddle to the veteran and will be the first challenge for the 31-year-old to overcome.

Should the Vettel-spearhead be blunt once again and Leclerc's sharper, Tavoni's prophecy that the future of Ferrari depends on the German could well come true as the balance of power will surely shift to the new kid on the block.